


How to Add Angst to the Pacifist Route

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Analysis, Fridge Horror, Gen, Grimdark, Meta, Nonfiction, Responsibility, Self-Harm, Suicide mention, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Trauma, Undertale Pacifist Route, Undertale Saves and Resets, Violence, fanfic fodder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: A post about how to add various levels of angst to Pacifist and Post-Pacifist Undertale works, all the way up to a few grimdark options.





	How to Add Angst to the Pacifist Route

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on June 25, 2019.

While comparing and contrasting music videos for Undertale Genocide and Pacifist Routes, the author noticed something: the Genocide Route music videos are often better. This could be because the Pacifist Route videos, unlike the Genocide Route ones, are often devoid of emotional weight, complexity, and stakes, ending up less tonally nuanced than the game itself.

It is possible the author simply prefers angsty works: after all, the author enjoyed the famous dark fanfiction [Flowey is Not a Good Life Coach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056333/chapters/11627629). But how can one make Pacifist Route or Post-Pacifist timeline works similarly enjoyable?

One should pay a little more attention to canon details (Frisk actually dies! A lot!) or make reasonable extrapolations to how it would feel in-universe.

(While this article was originally designed for music videos, it is also useful for fanfictions and fan comics.)

* * *

### 1\. Frisk is basically an unstoppable, time-warping deity on a rampage of mercy. 

  
**Flowey** : Why are you being so nice to me?  
**Art by Golzy Blade Dee/Golzy**

Frisk never stays dead for long because of their (possibly single-minded) determination to survive and achieve their goals. Frisk can take a direct hit from a god’s super-powerful blast, and hold on by a fraction of a point of health. Even if said god outright shatters Frisk’s soul, Frisk simply refuses to die. Frisk’s determination apparently can warp fate itself and break all barriers, including, well, the barrier.   
In essence, Frisk is an unstoppable, unkillable abomination. This would all be terrifying if Frisk weren’t a loving goody two-shoes pacifist….as it is in the Genocide Route.  
However, even a goody two-shoes Frisk who has never killed anyone, ever, can be frightening. Undyne could easily feel scared when a human child with no known combat experience effortlessly blocks all her attacks.

Then there’s Frisk’s rampage of mercy. Frisk can forgive and befriend anyone, even people who tried to kill them, even those who tried to kill them repeatedly. Why? What does Frisk know that others don’t? Is Frisk on some other level of morality entirely?

It’s not that far-fetched to feel suspicious of people who are too good: after all, some people find the utterly wholesome and compassionate Mr. Rogers unnerving. What would it feel to face off against Frisk, a person one was trying to kill all of ten seconds ago, only to be spared over and over?  
Flowey himself seems terrified by Frisk’s incomprehensible mercy, as it’s so against the worldview he’s built and his own lack of compassion. He cries, and says: “Why are you being so nice to me?”

One way to make this even more terrifying is to keep Frisk’s face completely neutral at all times, giving a sense of detachment between them and others. _(see sample image, where their face is obscured)_ It makes one wonder: is Frisk truly good, or is it all an act they’re compelled to perform?

* * *

### 2\. Frisk endures a lot of pain (and death) when, sometimes, it would be so much easier to kill their foes.

Even when played by an exceptionally skilled player, Frisk will die many times. (due to the inevitable deaths in the Omega Flowey battle) An easy way to add angst to the Pacifist Route is to linger on this gruesome fact. Just because Frisk can come back as many times as they want doesn’t mean it’s easy and painless. How does it feel to die? To hear one’s very SOUL snap in half?

The attacks, too, are surely painful. One could add some realism through attacks having physical effects. For example, when fighting Toriel, Frisk’s clothing and eyebrows could get singed, and they could sweat from either nervousness or the room gradually heating up from all the fire. Or, for more intensity, Frisk’s clothes could catch fire and they’d have to put it out, or Frisk could suffer minor burns just from getting too close to fireballs. The most angsty option of all, for really dark works, is for Frisk to know what it’s like to burn to death, with all its gruesome details.

This angst isn’t completely out of the blue: Flowey expects Frisk to feel terror and agony as he traps them and kills them over and over. One could also make Frisk feel shocked or baffled when returning to life, with phantom pains and injuries even through their HP is fine. Perhaps rewinding time would even make them feel disoriented, or nauseous, or even fill them with existential wrongness.

All throughout this, Frisk would have to wonder: is it worth it to die over and over? Is it worth reviving Undyne, someone so openly out for their blood who has, in fact, killed them multiple times? Wouldn’t it be easier, and so much less painful, to kill rather than be killed? Perhaps Frisk can make an exception, just this once, for a particularly aggressive or unforgivable monster. How much do they have to turn the other cheek for people who want them dead?

* * *

### 3\. Frisk feels a crushing sense of responsibility to do the right thing for everyone, to give everyone’s story a happy ending.

  
YES ❤ NO

As anyone vaguely familiar with Spider-Man would know, with great power comes great responsibility. To do the Pacifist Route, Frisk would have to care about the monsters and feel dissatisfied with their fate, to the point of trapping themselves underground and risking getting hurt (and dying) repeatedly. For maximum angst, one can make it one of the worst Neutral endings, all the way to the near-Genocide Queen Alphys ending.

What if, out of a sense of responsibility for monsters’ happiness and security, Frisk resets/reloads repeatedly? What if “good” isn’t good enough?

Some players, hoping to save Asriel, play the game many times. In some works, Frisk does the same, even breaking the rules of the universe for it. For the sake of angst, one could easily make Frisk motivated by guilt: they can’t stand to leave Asriel behind or let him turn back into a soulless flower. That just brings up another guilty angle: why is Frisk so kind? Why did Frisk climb a mountain it’s said no one ever returns from?

In a Post-Pacifist work, Frisk might become a control freak who requires perfect relations between humans and monsters. After a mild diplomatic gaffe (e.g., a monster spilling punch on a human diplomat), Frisk might reload and relive several hours’ worth of a diplomatic event just to prevent that from happening. One could easily make Frisk a secretly lonely, anxiety-prone hero because of the immense responsibility. Perhaps, after seeing the same predictable responses, Frisk would become like Flowey, and reduce everyone to roles to play. Yet, Frisk would still do good, though more by reflex than actual compassion.

* * *

### 4\. Frisk is alone in their power and knowledge.

Frisk is the only one who can rewind time. That’s a lot of power and responsibility for anyone, and certainly for a child who didn’t even choose to have that ability.

With no possible mentors (if they don’t ask Flowey), how will they learn how and when to use their power effectively? In-game, the player goes back to a previous point either by closing the game and opening it up again or when Frisk’s HP goes to zero. However, as there’s not really an in-game explanation for closing and re-opening the game window, Frisk may only know how to reload by dying.

This could be played for morbid humor, such as Frisk wondering what a Tide Pod tastes like, or massive angst. For maximum angst (risking over-the-top grimdark status, which I don’t recommend), Frisk feeling the need to painfully reload every time something goes even slightly wrong could, over time, reduce their will to live—the very determination that enables that power.   
Frisk’s very sense of self-preservation might erode: for example, they might idly wonder how many lethal food allergies they have and how to test them all.   
If one wants to get really, really dark, someone could catch Frisk trying to reload in some horrible way, and Frisk would have to explain themselves.

The only one who can understand what it’s like to control the timeline, to die over and over, and potentially to feel an existence estranged from others is Flowey.   
Depending on how much Frisk knows about Flowey and Frisk’s understanding of morality, Frisk may simply consider Flowey ‘evil’. If Flowey has this power and is evil, or got this power and then became evil, what if Frisk feels doomed to become evil someday, too?

For extra angst, Frisk may come to be more like Flowey in worldview or behavior and _not even know_ , because they’ve never done a Genocide Route/never so far into the route.  
More sympathetically, Flowey became a lonely wreck partly because he spent so much time exhausting the possibilities of the Underground. At first, Frisk might reload only when something bad happens. But what if Frisk gets curious about alternate paths, and what would happen if they said something else instead? That would be a step towards Flowey.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/). Feel free to comment on this article there or here.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Pacifist Run](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745233) by [Ihasa (Ihasafandom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihasafandom/pseuds/Ihasa)




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